IN THE NEWS

TOUR OF THE MONTH

ON THIS DAY IN LONDON

20th March 1968 Arsenal footballer Paul Merson was born in Harlesden, North London.

20th March 1920 1st flight from London to South Africa lands (1 months)

20th March 1906 George B Shaws Captain Brassbound's Conversion, premieres in London

20th March 1727 Issac Newton, English physicist/astronomer, died in London aged 84.

20th March 1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana

Berry Bros & Rudd Ltd

An amazing place and London's most exotic wine cellar.

Location: 3 St. James's Street, Lambeth, SW1Y 4AA

Description: An amazing place and London's most exotic wine cellar. Home of poets, bare-knuckle boxing and of course...very expensive booze. The oldest drinking bootle is apparently an 1834 Tokaji Essencia, and the oldest wine you can actually buy...well the 1900 Chateau Lafite Rothschild of course.

The business was established in 1698 by the Widow Bourne at 3 St James's Street, London. Today members of the Berry and Rudd families continue to own and manage the family-run wine merchant.

By 1765, at the `Sign of the Coffee Mill', Berrys not only supplied the fashionable `Coffee Houses' (later to become Clubs such as Boodles and Whites) but also began weighing customers on giant coffee scales.

Records of customers' weights, including those of Lord Byron, William Pitt and the Aga Khan, span three centuries and continue to be added to, to this day.

Berrys first supplied wine to the British Royal Family during King George III's reign and has continued to do so until the present day. Today, Berrys holds two Royal Warrants for H.M. The Queen and H.R.H. The Prince of Wales.

In 1923 the company created Cutty Sark Scots' Whisky; this was the first naturally-coloured Scotch. More recently a range of fine vintage Single Malts has been developed under the Berrys' Own Selection label.

Marvel at their giant coffee scales erected in the shop in 1765 to weigh customers. Records of customers' weights spanning three centuries still exist and are added to, to this day. Napolean III, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh have all had the pleasure!

There's a wall against which Henry VIII banged his tennis balls against, and they lost 69 cases of wine on the Titanic!